I try to remind people that the U.N. has not succeeded at much of anything during its history. Mostly it just makes pronouncements and consumes cash. When it comes to doing any real work, they fall down on the job, because most of the people that make up the U.N. have never had to do any real work themselves.
So I hope this lesson on the U.N. to Seth Borenstein sinks in. He’ll hardly forget his day in the cold I’m sure.
Temperature and Weather on Dec14th in Copenhagen: Hi 33 °F Lo 31 °F Humidity average 89%, winds averaged 6 mph for a wind chill of 26°F. Overcast.
From the Climate Pool:
“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said after waiting 7 hours and 20 minutes to enter the Copenhagen climate talks.
With U.N. security letting in only those cleared last week, hundreds of accredited delegates, journalists and NGO representatives were left to stand for hours in near-freezing temperatures before being let through. “It was crazy,” AP’s Seth Borenstein said. “You couldn’t leave the line. You couldn’t go to the bathroom, you couldn’t eat. Then snowflakes started falling. One woman even said, ‘if lightning strikes me, would they take me out of line?'”
People started handing out food — one gave out tangerines, another croissants. A man screamed “I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.” At one point, a U.N. official announced the wait would be longer, prompting the crowd to boo and chant “Let Us In!”
An Indian TV crew member interviewing actor Rahul Bose quipped “we’ll just do our interviews out here!” to which Bose mused “when bad things happen in a first-world country, it’s really a disaster!”
Seth himself stepped into the line at 7:55 a.m. and was through at 3:15 p.m., but only after another AP reporter, John Heilprin, “saved my bacon” by persuading a U.N. security guard to go out and fetch him. “John was afraid to go out himself in case they wouldn’t let him back in … the first thing I did when I saw him was give him a big hug. I have never been so grateful to be indoors.” Seth’s neighbors in line? “Oh they’re still out there.”
And it looks like they might stay there. With 40,000 people registered and Bella Center’s capacity only 15,000, the U.N. introduced a new quota system and ordered NGOs to cut down their numbers. Police shut down the Bella Center’s subway stop in a bid to ease the congestion. The situation can only get worse as more than 100 heads of state and government, including President Obama, show up this week with their entourages.
Many among the 3,500 accredited journalists worry they may be “locked down” in the press area and kept away from the conference center’s central atrium where delegates, presidents and premiers would circulate.
UPDATE: At 5 p.m., U.N. officials told everyone still in line that accreditation would close at 6 p.m. and so they should leave until Tuesday morning. Police started pulling people out of the crowd, which shouted back “Shame on the U.N.!” The U.N. then apologized for the inconvenience — a gesture met with more booing and chanting.
Katy Daigle is based in London and covers international news for the AP
==========
And they want the U.N. to run our global carbon system and handle all the money? Hell they can’t even handle the press line.
Zimbabwe is the best example for those CO15 maniacs.
They have effectively reduced CO2 emissions!
Please check it out at http://rainforests.mongabay.com/carbon-emissions/zimbabwe.html
UN: Please adopt Mugabe as a case-study!
Ecotretas
If this is how the UN runs a conference, imagine how they’d run the World!
Even the MSM seems to be taking this Copenhagen farce less seriously. It does seem like the average person is ” getting wise” to this non-governing body of do-nothings.
Al Gore’s arrival, as reported in the Daily Telegraph, UK:-
“The Prince, who flew in by private jet, joined Arnold Schwarzenegger the Governor of California and Al Gore, the former US Senator, who also flew in to add impetus to the talks.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6819392/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Prince-Charles-warns-climate-change-will-drive-starvation-and-terrorism.html
“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said
Not to mention Warmth.
Brings questions to mind,
who chose the site
who coordinated the event
who allowed 40K people to register
…and who wants to save the world from the bugger man?
Obviously they missed an opportunity to do some “cap and trade” on queue. Get some developing nations types to stand in line for you for a fee.
You guys have to understand that this was done on the cheap, only 300 million or so. Once the UN gets fully funded for this, starting with tens of billions per year and gaining from there all of this sort of thing will stop happening.
And I though that all Pro-Global-Warming-Brownshirt-Activist-Journalists had a special preferential treatment pass to the UN… silly me!!!
A note: Since WUWT has an International Status now, it would be great to also use International Units… it would avoid using unit converters.
The very thought of all those poor people, standing for hours in the bitter cold, unable even to go to the toilet, when all they wanted was to be inside in the warm, blathering about combating Global Warming.
It’s enough to make a pig laugh.
Starting with the Briffa fiasco a few weeks ago, this is really the gift that keeps on giving and giving!
Thank you Anthony, Steve McIntyre, and all of the others who have made this human epoch so deliciously entertaining.
Merry Christmas, all!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
They could not have done this any better than an old silent cop movie! Laughing my ass off having another cold one with fried trout!
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Freezing at the warming summit, go figure
Ecotretas (15:00:22) :
Yeah, I’m sure all the dictators in those poor countries will use the Climate Change funds to reduce their carbon footprint… is gun powder fossil or renewable?
(Gunpowder is mainly sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate)
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Of course you are. Al Gore is there.
This story belongs in ‘Gore Effect’ at Wiki.
There your have it:” With 40,000 people registered and Bella Center’s capacity only 15,000, the U.N. introduced a new quota system and ordered NGOs to cut down their numbers “.
Welcome to the future of U. N. controlled carbon rationing. What ever amount of carbon needed to maintain your lifestyle, only one third will be given out.
Poetic justice.
On a different subject;
In my scan today of the Green Tab subjects over at the Huffington Post, The number of comments on most of their articles are only in the single and double digits. Comments on those subjects usually number in the hundreds every day. This is not anecdotal evidence, something amazing is happening. This is real.
The difference between the Mafia and the UN? The Mafia’s efficient and has a sense of its own brand of ethics.
This story belongs in ‘Gore Effect’ at Wiki
But apparently nothing is blamed on him anymore. It’s all on the scientists he listened to now. My faux pas.
sarc off/
We know they’re incompetent fools. Now the reporters know too. But will they tell their readers or will they just keep taking the money?
Temperature forecast for Hopenhagen (high / low) :
Wed 16 December 2° C / -4° C Snow
Thu 17 December -1° C / -3° C Snow
Fri 18 December -1° C / -4° C Clowdy
Some delegates begin to realize something at last ?
One woman even said, ‘if lightning strikes me, would they take me out of line?’
OMG funny!
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
(At the risk of overstating the obvious jab) Having body parts frozen at a shrimp-fest to complain about global warming? At a certain point I’ll stop laughing at these goofs. 😉
Its the gore effect – expect the cold to continue as he jets in – his limo will probably be warm!
“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said after waiting 7 hours and 20 minutes to enter the Copenhagen climate talks
He couldve cycled to the countryside and relieved himself in the fields, (or maybe a park somewhere?), and thought of Mali. I do not know how tolerant the Danes are on these matters. But at least his carbon footprint wouldve been small. Or would it?
I wonder if he had scandalous thoughts about Global Warming during his wait?
If this is how the UN runs a conference, imagine how they’d run the World!
.
People started handing out food — one gave out tangerines, another croissants
If they did run the world the food handed out would be mud pies and sewage contaminated water.
no sarc
You’re all a bunch of schadenfreuders! Poor Seth. Nearly 8 hours outdoors in winter. Not what he’s trained for, you know. But come Thermageddon, Seth will thaw out and everything will be fine.
Hard to feel sorry for this shill – and hard to believe he was actually cold at around 0 Celsius. I spent 45 mintues trudging through the snow at -30 (and -40 wind chill) to get to work this morning, out of some vague and no doubt loony logic that tells me exercise and being in touch with your local environment is good (and not to save the World from CO2, Global Warming is a crock). Walking home at -25 wasn’t much fun either, but at least there was some sun with a spot on it for a change.
“I try to remind people that the U.N. has not succeeded at much of anything during its history.”
It succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.
Do not get confused from this statment. I am no fan of the UN. But we should be fair. The UN was designed to keep a dialog between those on both sides of the Iron curtain. Instead of competing with war (although there were a few proxy wars) we competed economically and politically and the UN played a part in keeping that dialog up.
That being said the UN has lost its main purpose with the ending of the cold war and has not achieved anything beyond that purpose.
We sincerely miss TomP and Joel Shore these weeks.
Are they kicking around now in Copenhagen, or?
Copenhagen’s hookers missed a real opportunity to sell some “body heat” here.
As I said in one of my articles it may well be that AGW gives us a slightly higher peak during a natural peak and a slightly less cold trough during a natural trough and because cold is worse than heat the net result is beneficial.
Until warmist chaps can say precisely how much is AGW and how much is natural their opinions (mere opinions) are valueless.
In 1900 the most pressing concern in western cities was how to deal with all the horse dung.
We can expect a similar or greater change of priority in the next 100 years.
Just get out of the way and let free individuals solve the problems democratically without some arrogant herberts thinking they can define planetary progress from now into an indefinite future.
I am confident that in due course there can be enough global wealth generated to result in individuals worldwide voluntarily restricting breeding rates so that we reach sustainability without war or coercion or global famine (assuming natural variability doesn’t screw us all on it’s own).
It may be at a total global population level higher than the more fearful amongst us currently consider practical but let’s face it, there was a time that 7 billion would have seemed impossible but it isn’t.
Maybe we’ll peak at 9 billion, maybe 12 billion, but peak we will and at a per capita consumption that technology and freedom will decide, not central dictat.Then there will probably be a slow managed decline to a permanent accommodation with Gaia.
Maybe there will be more resource depletion and regional environmental damage than some would approve of but we are a talented, co-operative and sensible species so long as blinkered authoritarians do not blow the whole shebang with their arrogant power hungry and financially greedy demands.
Kindly back off and leave us alone.
“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,”
Wait until you have no electricity Seth.
Is it just me or is there something very satisfying about the idea of hundreds of people freezing their asses off in a queue for seven hours in order to listen to speeches about the peril of Global Warming.
‘“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said after waiting 7 hours and 20 minutes’
Right, like all those other good things – like watching that piece of methane emitting animal’s flesh on that coal fired grill, while sipping that chilled carbonated drink on a hot summer afternoon… 🙂
“U.N. official announced the wait would be longer, prompting the crowd to boo and chant “Let Us In!””
In Soviet Union, they would deny to officials wanting to chant “Let Us Out!” 🙂
Golly, they should have had portable solar collectors to keep them warm.
Oh? Not sunny you say? ☺ ☺
And we can bet fossil fuels are heating the buildings they were freezing their asses off to get in. Bloody hypocritical idiots all of them.
40,000 people now? This is the grand farce of the millennium.
Obama’s handlers and security are having a fit over protecting him if it is that crowded.
OT: Even the leftist radio station I listen to (has nice music) actually had a report on AL Gore’s faux pas yesterday. ☺ ☺
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
What did they really expect the weather to be in Denmark in December?
joshua corning (15:27:43) :
“I try to remind people that the U.N. has not succeeded at much of anything during its history.”
It succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.”
That’s a strange thing to say. How do we know the world would have ended if the UN never existed? How do we know it won’t still end, despite the existence of the UN?
What are you talking about, how did the UN stop the US and USSR from anything??
What has the UN itself ever actually succeeded at, at a global or even regional scale?
[REPLY – Gosh, yes. If the US and SU had had the slightest inclination to have a nuclear war, the UN couldn’t have done thing one about it. (FWIW, I have a graduate degree in history, with a concentration on military/foreign policy, and specific expertise in nuclear strategy and tactics.) ~ Evan]
Youtube or it didn’t happen.
This will have to do for now.
Christmas Tree in Copenhagen
Bjorn Lomborg has written eloquently on these very needs in the developing worlds: see several recent Wall Street Journal articles. I suppose it would be wishful thinking that Seth had access to a news kiosk while he was locked out?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574376442559564788.html (on modern technologies)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574562123968802420.html (on glaciers expansion and consequent water shortages)
How ironic, frostbite at the “warming” conference.
With 40,000 people registered and Bella Center’s capacity only 15,000, the U.N. introduced a new quota system
The entire world registering for a modern lifestyle
UN quota only taking it away from those who already have it
We don’t get UN farce reported in the Australian MSM.
joshua corning (15:27:43) : ” It (UN) succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.”
Don’t know how old you are or where you are from but the UN had nothing to do with the US and USSR not going to war. It was the policy of mutually assured destruction and the leaders of both countries finally coming face to face with that real possibility that allowed cooler heads to prevail.
Ray (15:10:11) :
A note: Since WUWT has an International Status now, it would be great to also use International Units… it would avoid using unit converters.
I propose our first Watts International Unit : The Seth
The Seth : A unit measuring of the loss of things we all take for granted until we no longer have them.
Where 1 Seth (or 1000mSeth) = I really need a glass of fresh, clean water!
1kSeth = But when will power be restored? Three days!
If this is how the UN runs a conference, imagine how they’d run the World!
Well that one is easy. After the UN has taxed our cars and taxed our gas,
taxed our cows and taken our cash, for every dollar it collects Gore will collect 50 cents, Pachauri will collect 30 cents, 10 cents will go to Global Warming research, 9 cents to the rest of the staff, 0.5 cents to advertising what a great job they are doing and 0.4 cents to distributing stuff to the needy and 0.1 cents to the photographers and press covering the event.
Crowded at the trough? Oink, oink!
“when bad things happen in a first-world country, it’s really a disaster!”
So… if bad things happen in 3rd world countries it’s ok? Maybe not *as* bad as when it happens in a 1st world country?
Good thing this guy’s not a comedian – he’d have starved
Amen, Tom.
Ray (15:10:11) :
“And I though that all Pro-Global-Warming-Brownshirt-Activist-Journalists had a special preferential treatment pass to the UN… silly me!!!
A note: Since WUWT has an International Status now, it would be great to also use International Units… it would avoid using unit converters.”
I project that all posters will be, in 1.3 Hermies, with an extremely to extraordinary high confidence level. Trust me.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8408386.stm
Bill Parsons (15:35:43) : “You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,”
Bjorn Lomborg has written eloquently on these very needs in the developing worlds:
Water I can understand, but a bathroom – they just use the fields. Of course in Copenhagen it wouldve been more than his toes that wouldve been cold for Borenstein.
My father-in-law worked for the UN for seven years in all the world’s hotspots. Ask him and he’ll tell you it’s the most incompetent group of people ever to grace the planet’s surface.
Delicious irony! Just delicious!
CH
Kaboom (15:11:06) :
Starting with the Briffa fiasco a few weeks ago, this is really the gift that keeps on giving and giving!
Thank you Anthony, Steve McIntyre, and all of the others who have made this human epoch so deliciously entertaining.
Merry Christmas, all!
Adding gratitude for AW and the mods at WUWT and hundreds of other bloggers, scientists, commentators proving that democracy has a home on the internet if not in the halls of public institutions. There could be no better present (aside a nice cheque) than seeing such democratic action meet and disassemble tyranny.
Sorry Seth, that is all just sceptical nonsense. It was not cold and you are being misled by “Big Oil”. If you read peerreviewedpublishedpapers you will know that according to the models it is warm in Hopenhagen this time of year due to “unprecedented warming”.
sarc off
Off Topic: Plimer – Monbiot debate
Tues 15 Dec on Australian gov TV (ABC ‘Lateline’) this long anticipated debate.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/12/15/2772906.htm
See for yourself, but it is not pleasant to watch. Plimer is set upon by two journalist with direct questions of the authority of claims in his ‘Heaven and Earth’ book, which he apparently evades.
Both journalists claim to have read the book, as I have. Dunno whether Plimer’s referencing is fraudulent, as claimed, but I do know that the repetition, the poor structure, the rambling stream of consiousness towards the end was most annoying for this sympathetic reader. Why the book was not edited properly (in a new edition?) bewilders me. This, and the evasion in the interview, undermines his creditility as a scientist and the credibility of his message.
Seth looks like a hearty eater. That’s a no-no if he wants to save the planet. He needs to do some extreme slimming down … and no meat or dairy products either!
Save the planet Seth!
Ecotretas (15:00:22) :
I agree Zimbabwe should be a study case for the CO15 maniacs. Their economy is in total collapse with hyper-inflation, widespread poverty (some of the worst in Africa), and major loss of industry resulting in overwhelming unemployment.
Given that the CO2 output models are tied to economic productivity, it makes sense that Zimbabwe is doing so well on their CO2 reductions.
Problem with your analysis Tom, is that the leaders of the US and USSR didn’t seem to think so at the time. They joined the UN and took active part.
(A question for those who think the UN achieves nothing and come from a great power. Would you be willing to see your country’s veto go? If the UN achieves nothing, how come having that veto is so important? Precisely to limit what it can achieve perhaps. So you have people who deliberately limit its scope whining about how limited its scope is!)
It is important to realise that there are two entirely separate United Nations. There is the political one, where leaders troop off to New York and decisions are made, or at least discussed. It is a tiny organisation, mostly translators and support staff.
There is an organisational UN: bodies tasked with various functions such as UNICEF and UNESCO. The actual UN has oversight, but world leaders don’t vote or make decisions in this part of the UN. Some of these bodies are bureaucratic nightmares, it has to be said. But they have basically nothing to do with the political side.
If were Seth and had to be out in the cold for that long, I think I’d show my badge for some free sex to warm me up. 😉
CAN’T COPE IN COPEN HA HA HA HA HAGEN
http://www.iceagenow.com/Blizzards_in_Copenhagen_ClimateGate_Dec15_PiersCorbyn.pdf
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/12/15/morning-bell-they-cant-even-run-a-conference-let-alone-the-global-economy/
I wonder if the temperatures will be adjusted from
“freezing my ass off”
to
“just chillin'”
“I try to remind people that the U.N. has not succeeded at much of anything during its history.”
Do you think that small pox eliminated itself off the face of the earth?
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/smallpox/en/index.html
sorry for OT, but why are “we” so lucky to have Roy Spencer and John Christy guarding the satellite data? Is that just a coincidence that we have real scientists in those positions?
The video that Anthony Watts does not want you to see: The Climate Denial “Crock of the Week”
July 29, 2009
This is the video that Anthony Watts demanded YouTube take down. This is what the former TV weatherman who runs a leading anti-scientific website, WattsUpWithThat, is afraid to let the public see:
Why did Anthony Watts want to take down this video. It is not much. They call this site anti-scientific. Don’t understand that conclusion. Science is about looking into things and questioning. How can Watts Up With That be anti-scientific?
This whole issue is really bizarre on the behavior aspect. You have the RealClimate group and the WUWT group. I read the posts on both sides and there is very little open minded scientific inquiry in either camp. Mostly it sounds like Cult minded groups. I like to be in the scientific camp. I want proof and evidence on any conclusion and I have every right to question any information. On the RealClimate side Peer review is a Gospel Truth. Once an article appears in a Peer reviewed journal it is established fact, who are the peers?
Where is the humble science in this Climate Change debate? It is either you are called a “warminst” or “evil denier” that would enjoy the total destruction of all life on Earth. Why does science have to be reduced to this negative crap that politics have become? I can’t agree with either side anymore than I can agree with Right or Left belief as absolutes. All ideas have some valid input. I don’t believe all climatologists are producing phony information to get a pay check or work to create the NWO. I don’t think every article on this site is funded by an Oil Company who knowingly wants to destroy the entire planet to make a few bucks today.
Please help the insanity! Don’t let the horrid politcal forces infect scientific inquiry!!
Pamela Gray (15:12:02) :
“They could not have done this any better than an old silent cop movie!”
The only thing lacking was a foot of snow and a howling wind.
Dave (15:26:33) :
I read the temperatures, Low 31 F, wind chill 26 F. That’s shorts weather where I live. The 8 hour wait would be bothersome but it was NOT cold.
Slightly OT, but I couldn’t resist. Read the narrative, then read the comments. Made me laugh, once I’d stopped retching.
Link
Sow global warming and reap the bitter cold of winter. Sometimes, karma can be a bitch.
Arnold Schwartzneggar has flown to Copenhagen. Apparently he wants to hold another conference in “Caulifornia”, there is such a US state apparently, the state he has managed to bankrupt so effectively with his green policies.
“If we do not reach a strong agreement some will say the conference has failed, that we talked grandly but we are fooling ourselves much like the fairy tale The Emperor has no Clothes”. He doesnt have the foggiest idea what The Emperor has No clothes is all about.
Well this whole thing has given us a good laugh. And without some humour, and a good laugh occassionally, where would we be?
We would be in Austria.
So, is it snowing in Copenhagen? I know we all wish it would. WeatherAction forecasts snow for 14-16/17 and the BBC, bless their little cotton socks, is reporting heavy snow for Tuesday evening. Here’s a web cam http://www.trafikken.dk/wimpdoc.asp?page=document&objno=20580 which definately shows evidence of snow, but not a blizzard, or indeed heavy … by Canadian standards 🙂
Norman (16:18:03) : Please help the insanity
Not me Norman. I am not a supporter of insanity.
Norman (16:18:03)
Put the computer down and go to bed ..; RIGHT NOW!
Seriously do you think Anthony has more clout with Google than Al Gore, a Director of the company?
Poor people of Copenhagen, they are being made to look amateur because of the UN’s inability to organize a conference. And as a thanks for hosting, they will probably get their city smashed up by the idiots when there is no deal.
Norman, is that you? Look, the whole AGW thing never had a rock solid scientific grounding. That’s why people like Anthony Watts are important. They bring people’s attention on the sloppy and dishonest enterprise called ‘climate science’.
We had 34 F today in Pendleton. Surfs up! No kidding on the surf either. All that snow and ice is melting in the foothills and causing streams to flood! Oh yeh. Forgot. Flooding in December is a global warming thing. Now if I can just get my sewer line to unfreeze in Wallowa County I will be happy to trumpet global warming. Or at least local warming.
Couldn’t have happened to a better bunch of gullible fools.
So Ahnold went to Copenhagen… as a Californian, I’m really embarrassed.
paulhan (16:24:06) :
Truly pathetic. I still have not found “Thou shall not burn carbon”in the Bible. Plenty about false witness, stealing, oppressing the poor, and NOT TRUSTING GOD.
Let’s fix the false witness, stealing and oppression of the poor, ie. our banking and money system. That could easily be at fault for whatever environmental problems we have. It has already killed 10s or 100s of millions.
Robert of Ottawa (16:33:24) : So, is it snowing in Copenhagen? I know we all wish it would. WeatherAction forecasts snow for 14-16/17 and the BBC, bless their little cotton socks, is reporting heavy snow for Tuesday evening..
Eastern Europe is White, The Balkans and even much of Spain. But North west Europe alas no so far. Here is the latest picture:
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif
Hey, PaulH (15:22:01)
The quote was:
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Sounds to me like this man needs not socks, but some woolen jockey shorts;-).
I LOVE the incompetence on display in Copenhagen. What a debacle!
This conference is a case study on how to make something simple, a get together of like-minded people, into something FUBAR.
Put private enterprise on the job, e.g., the good folks who present Macworld.
Want to mess it up? Put a government or the U.N. in charge.
“Tom in Florida
joshua corning (15:27:43) : ” It (UN) succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.”
Don’t know how old you are or where you are from but the UN had nothing to do with the US and USSR not going to war. It was the policy of mutually assured destruction and the leaders of both countries finally coming face to face with that real possibility that allowed cooler heads to prevail.”
Fully loaded B-52s orbiting at their Failsafe points a few times certainly had an effect on the Russian thinking.
I think the UN tackling climate change (how come it was never declared a “war on climate change” BTW?) makes less sense than Askaninja’s approach (OT but he’s funny… it’s festivus season after all):
Maybe there should be a end of year climate change funnies thread?
Back on topic… if they do get an agreement at COP15 I want the guy that rationed the registrations to be the one that rations CO2 permits /nod
Richard (16:36:03) :
You kill me! I wonder why I typed that “help the insanity” Sorry I meant “Stop the insanity”. I love science and the method. Don’t like what it is growing into. The Political crap!
What I can’t quite grasp is why all those people were so anxious to get into that place. I dare say there would be a dental surgery close-by with an in-door waiting room.
“The video that Anthony Watts does not want you to see: The Climate Denial “Crock of the Week””
I don’t know if Watts tried to take down this video or what his reasons would be, but I can tell you what I do know. The author of those “Crock of the Week” videos, greenman, is a bold faced liar and bigot who refuses to correct his lies when confronted with them.
“And I though that all Pro-Global-Warming-Brownshirt-Activist-Journalists had a special preferential treatment pass to the UN… silly me!!!”
He should have just shown them the Climategate emails with his name on them … he could have got a VIP suite. And a limo. And a private jet.
You know, all of those things that the people who care about the planet deserve to have while they are caring about the planet half a planet away from their homes.
Thanks for the Christmas Tree video- brilliant, but guys (and gals)- rush to this link if you want the best ever laugh on the jokers at Copenhagen:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/12/14/mckibben-faith-and-work/
It is truly sad when people misunderstand everything. I’ll guess that you are 12 or mentally retarded?
Ray (15:10:11) :
A note: Since WUWT has an International Status now, it would be great to also use International Units… it would avoid using unit converters.
**********************
Not to worry Ray, once the International Governance Committee takes over control of these United States, then the Metric System will be required under penalty of the law. Just ask the Britons that wanted to use the traditional system of measurement.
Off with their heads!
Just between you and me, I’d rather stick to our English system as an act of defiance. For years I never made a big deal out of the fact that I served in the military or was a Christian. Now that they (I) have been painted as “terrorists’ by the Obama administration, I wear the labels proudly!
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
O/T but Tips have gone.
A question for Leif:
It seems to me that sunspot 1035 is the same sunspot that has now made three revolutions of the Sun; in effect, not a new one, although I understand how they are counted.
I don’t understand at all why those people wanted to be on the queue chilled for hours, since there could be nothing meaningful going on inside……………..
With apologies if this has been posted previously.
The BBC had its first balanced debate this evening. Richard Lindzen, Bjorn Lomborg and Bob [snip] Watson, half an hour of balance, informed, reasoned discussion. Granted only viewers of BBC4 would have seen it, but hey, progress is progress.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pft7c/The_Environment_Debate/
It really is worth a look, if only to see just how much climategate has forced the hand of the BBC. Hopefully someone can disseminate the show on a less restricted format than the BBC iPlayer.
If I’d have been in Copenhagen, I’d have been taking orders for food, drink, socks, windcheaters, and stand-in-lines for comfort breaks. AND THEY WOULD HAVE PAID FOR IT.
Anything written with an AP byline leaves me cold anyway.
“…to which Bose mused “when bad things happen in a first-world country, it’s really a disaster!”
Funny how an artificially created crisis work isnt it Bose?
Clueless git.
Seems to me this guy needs to get out in the real world more instead of spending all his time in an air conditioned office. Anyone who has gone to a highschool foot ball game, or waited at a bus stop knows near freezing temps will soak right through you if you are improperly dressed for the weather conditions. It is more a commentary on the crowds general lack of common sense (although some of them appear to have come prepared if they had snack munchies to give away).
Larry
Agreed. Mercenaries have sorted out more problems than blue helmets in real hot spots.
There was quite a heated but restrained debate between Monbiot and Plimer on Lateline (Asutralian ABC) last night:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/
Just click on the “Plimer, Monbiot cross swords in climate debate.” There was a lot of ducking and weaving and neither plimer nor Monbiot did their cause any favours IMHO.
Ray (15:14:35) :
“Ecotretas (15:00:22) :
Yeah, I’m sure all the dictators in those poor countries will use the Climate Change funds to reduce their carbon footprint… is gun powder fossil or renewable?
(Gunpowder is mainly sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate)”
Actually, thats black powder. Modern smokeless gunpowder is all nitrocellulose (cellulose treated with nitric acid) with some stabilizers added. So its all renewable.
Black powder is mostly ammonium nitrate or potassium nitrate (depending on your source, urea for the first and bird/bat dung for the second), with small amounts of charcoal (20% ) and 5% sulphur. Ammonium nitrate is renewable, potassium nitrate is much less so. Charcoal mostly comes from wood or other cellulosic material.
joshua corning (15:27:43) :
““I try to remind people that the U.N. has not succeeded at much of anything during its history.”
It succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.”
Joshua, the UN has never been involved in US/USSR treaty negotiations. For most of its history it has been used as a tool of communist expansion and propaganda. Its charter was written by Alger Hiss, Stalin’s spy inside the US state dept and Roosevelt adminstration. At most the UN has been useful for publicly exposing Soviet crimes and expansionism (shipping missiles to Cuba, invading Afghanistan) but was mute on issues where the soviets crushed democratic movements in eastern europe, it betrayed its former Security Council member, Taiwan, in favor of Communist China, and ignored genocides in the former Yugoslavia, Laos, Cambodia, Rwanda, and currently in Darfur.
The UN is largely staffed by people from corrupt countries who practice nepotism and graft as professional sports.
Pull your head out of your World Federalist Society disinfo cloud and start looking at the organization as it is.
The only thing that stopped the US and USSR from going to war directly (other than proxy wars) was the threat of mutual assured destruction.
AdderW (17:18:01) :
“It is truly sad when people misunderstand everything. I’ll guess that you are 12 or mentally retarded?”
There wasn’t anything to understand. Perhaps there was some context in the many comments I didn’t read, but that is irrelevent. I responded to what I read with the knowledge that I have.
In response you felt the need to “elevate” the debate with your quoted insults.
Cheers.
“Jon Jewett (17:21:12) :
Not to worry Ray, once the International Governance Committee takes over control of these United States, then the Metric System will be required under penalty of the law. Just ask the Britons that wanted to use the traditional system of measurement.
Off with their heads!”
It was the same when we Brits wanted to speak (And read the Bible) in English (Olde English that is, not the concoction we use today) rather than French or Latin.
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
For some, incoherent thinking is a sympton of a freezing ass…
All the intelligent people stayed away. I suspect the folks posting on the board would far exceed the IQ cap they have on the warmistas. Anthropogenic Gullible Warming is frustrating for it’s adherents.
John A (17:39:55) :
If I’d have been in Copenhagen, I’d have been taking orders for food, drink, socks, windcheaters, and stand-in-lines for comfort breaks. AND THEY WOULD HAVE PAID FOR IT.
The Europeans’ Innovative Capitalism gene has atrophied, it appears. While I can engage in schadenfruede with the best of you, I do have a smidge of empathy for Seth. Wait. That’s just the Christmas Spirit speaking. Seth! You’re in Northern Europe, in winter. I work outside for a living, dealing with ice and/or snow frequently, and chill temps in the single digits or less. And I’m in the Texas Panhandle. I shudder (pun intended) to think what my comrades in the Northern part of the country deal with.
Just imagine how cold it would have been at Hopenchangen without AGW! These freezing masses should be thankful for the additional CO2.
It’s interesting how the AGW trolls popping into WUWT are so focused on the comments, that they miss the science that leads off the comments, or maybe they just don’t recognize real science when they see it.
I was told the other day by a Norwegian AGW believer, that it was all just statistics. He didn’t have a clue that you need measurements and real data before you can wield a statistical club. Sigh.
3×2 (15:42:40) :
Would a particular number of Seths be directly equivalent to a unit of UN Incompetence Quotient or are there other variables?
I advocate 1 UNIQ where, say, 1 mUNIQ = an incompetently arranged accreditation process, I UNIQ is a food for oil programme, 1 hUNIQ = Massacres in Darfur, and 1 kUNIQ = a Rwandan genocide.
This guy is not called Boerenstein – it’s Borat! He probably was wearing that costume – with the suspenders – that would be cold, wouldn’t it.
FerdinandAkin (15:16:32) :
Welcome to the future of U. N. controlled carbon rationing. What ever amount of carbon needed to maintain your lifestyle, only one third will be given out.
———————————
How many life boats were on the Titanic?
Remember- the first two letters in the word unnecessary are “UN.”
It appears that Seth’s not the only elitist warmer journalist with a newfound insight into the competence of the UN.
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/12/if_this_is_un_efficiency_1.html
Well, Seth, if the extreme eco-idiots have their way, a bathroom will be a casualty for the great crusade. Can’t be having a toilet, that isn’t primitive enough for Mother Earth. Taking a tinkle in a bowl of fresh water uses too much of Gaia’s water supply. Hey, they advocate forced population reduction, this is mild in comparison.
As far as the UN, they are a failure but they are made up of humans. And because they have humans, they learn and adapt, which means they get better. The UN may fail at getting its goals by climate change, but they will succeed one day. I am no prophet, but I am not naive and idealistic. A leopard can’t change its spots, a tiger can’t change its stripes, and the UN can’t change what it really is. The UN won’t be a toothless lion forever.
Um … the insustainability of socialism (and by extension communism) and mutually assured destruction prevented nuclear war, not the UN. MAD did prevent a nuclear war, but when the USSR fell it ended hatred.
Questions for TheGoodLocust. Which sites censors comments which run contrary to the opinion of the authors, this one or realclimate.org? The obvious answer is not this site, because your post was posted. If Anthony Watts does not censor his blog which is under his direct control, why would he try to censor YouTube? Try posting this message at realclimate.org and see if Gavin Schmit will allow it — “Global warming is false, here are several provable reasons why … (then go on to name several logical reasons.)” I promise you, you’ll have a better chance of seeing a flying unicorn than to see that post get through the censors. Yet Anthony Watts is the one trying to suppress information. I only have one thing to say about that, which the link below will cover nicely.
http://movie-sounds.net/film/Married-Axe-Murderer/244/
chip (15:53:32) : Ditto!
My brother also worked in refugee resettlement for the UN for 4 years in the far back blocks of in Tanzania in the early to mid 1970’s and he holds the UN in complete contempt.
And the UN has got a lot more incompetent and corrupt since then.
“I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here”.
This was based on raw data and before adjustments for surface stations changes (=advancing in the que).
After adjustments it became “I need shorts! I’m burning my ass off out here”
Research indicates that it was the hottest on record and much worse than thought.
M
All in all …. a banner day!
joshua corning (15:27:43) :
[The UN] “succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.”
Not exactly. The UN was designed to allow the winners of the Second World war to maintain checks and balances over the activities other countries – member nations of the Security Council have the power of veto over most UN decisions.
There was a war between the US and its allies; on one side, and Russia and its satellite states on the other – the Cold War. It was that war, and the constant balancing of power between the antagonists, that prevented an all out nuclear war.
I lost some friends and colleagues in that war – it was real, it just wasn’t public.
History may tell it differently, but everybody who posts to this blog knows that there is often a great deal of difference between belief and reality.
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
———————————–
They didn’t account for the cold and that’s a travesty.
Stephen Wilde (15:31:48) : “…In 1900 the most pressing concern in western cities was how to deal with all the horse dung…”
Crapenshaggin’ shows how little we’ve advanced since then.
Thisis how our the “leaders of the world” manage a simple queue? Imagine them managing the world.
Of course there would be a lot of queues in such a post-global warming New World so I hope they get better at it.
Mal (18:41:04) :
After adjustments it became “I need shorts! I’m burning my ass off out here”
——————————————
Is that how they hide the decline?
Where is Piers Corbyn’s blizzard when we needed it. Seven to eight hours of standing in blizzard conditions would be a real life demo of why COLD is worse than heat. Might even penetrate a journalists brains.
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Was he tempted to beat the crap out the UN, really tempted?
I guess they should have believed the forecast of cooling.
They should have checked with Piers Corbyn first. They would have dressed in appropriate clothing then.
The most important “sensor” for the AGW priesthood to manage is the currently sympathetic press. Overbooking and then rationing access by leaving the people they need most standing outside in the freezing cold for 8+ hours is a real screw-up. The least they could have done is moved off of a first come, first served model when they identified the crisis.
Wish I had been there handing out Climate Audit and WUWT cups of hot coffee. I suspect the “journalists” are going to go Green Zone on them and report circulating rumors from the hotel bar.
Ecotretas (15:00:22) :
Zimbabwe is the best example for those CO15 maniacs.
They have effectively reduced CO2 emissions!
Please check it out at http://rainforests.mongabay.com/carbon-emissions/zimbabwe.html
Mugabe is in Copenhagen (with a large contingent) and it appears that he have the honor of being seated next to Denmark’s Queen Margrethe at a dinner on Thursday for heads of state and government attending the climate conference.
Mugabe to join climate talks under UN loophole
Seth Borenstein’s position in the new world order seems
rather insignificant.
Wade (18:34:16) :
“Questions for TheGoodLocust. Which sites censors comments which run contrary to the opinion of the authors, this one or realclimate.org? The obvious answer is not this site, because your post was posted. If Anthony Watts does not censor his blog which is under his direct control, why would he try to censor YouTube? ”
I never said Anthony was censoring anything. I plainly said that I didn’t know anything about the alleged censorship that I was responding to. I think you misunderstood what I was saying and I suggest you reread what I said.
How many embarrassadors… sorry, ambassadors are there?
*****FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCAST*****
[In Danish, of course]
The Danish National Weather (Not Climate) Service the “DNWNCS” has issued a Gore Effect Snow Advisory for the broadcast area for the remainder of the Conference.
Light snow is forecast in the capital city on Wednesday. On Wednesday evening, a polar front will sweep through and temperatures will plunge to hard freeze levels at night and fail to reach freezing during the day….for the remainder of the entire week….and into next week.
Residents are advised to take steps to protect life and property during this prolonged winter event….including pets and any brainwashed youth protesters [and brainwashed journalists] who might be stranded out in the freeze.
*****End broadcast*****
Chris Norfolk, VA, USA
Walk it off, wuss. Here in Wyoming, 26F is shorts and t-shirt weather. 🙂
Janet Raloff reports things went much more smoothly today:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/50791/title/U.N_effectively_locks_out_reporters%2C_others_in_Copenhagen
Good news for those left out in the cold yesterday. The UN was as efficient in its logistics this morning as it was chaotic yesterday. They segregated registrants by category–and kept all in tight single-file lines)–and I was moving through security en route to badging within 15 minutes of the line opening at 8 a.m.
She doesn’t say how a venue designed for 15,000 is handling 45,000, well maybe, she says “The UN planned to register 1,000 today. And then stop.”
Tomorrow may be another day (well, it will be another day, it may not be like today):
Meanwhile, we learned yesterday afternoon that entrance to the center is going to be increasingly restricted from today onward to NGOs–people representing nongovernmental organizations. Many if not most were going to have to leave 75 percent of their delegates outside the entrance gates beginning today.
Ray (15:14:35) : (<- said most of what I was going to say)
Except smokeless powder is nitrocellulose and usually one or more of about 8 or 9 other propellants based on nitrogen compounds (mostly), plus various additives and stabilizers.
It makes a great fertilizer, BTW. As long as you don't light it. Powder that's too old to use is often used as fertilizer, actually.
The big take-away I saw from that report was that they were REQUIRED to stay in line and not go for food or the bathroom. Would you put up with that?
It seems evident both that the UN are arrogant thugs and climate conference visitors are lemmings. They should sue the organizers, seriously. And they should have told them to slag off and just all gone home when they were told to "hold it" for hours, "or else."
“Claims by Seth Borenstein that he was waiting for hours in freezing conditions for his accreditation show the UN stonewalled even warmists under snow — but the whole affair doesn’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.”
What goes around comes around…
D. King (19:10:57) :
Actually, I would think this is a very small taste of the consequences of his ideas. No way he’ll figure that out, though.
I went to the protest against the World Trade Organization in Seattle ten years ago (I was still an anti-West radical). One thing I noticed was how well organized the protesters were compared to the WTO. They organized squatted warehouses to stay in, places to check your backpack, etc..
Problems in Copenhagen?
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of schmucks.
Most of the third world showed up for their share of loot, being goaded along by the Chinese. The Indians will make out even better, as their guy is helping to make sure the fix is in.
Everyone else is literally standing around in the cold watching one of the largest collective suicide attempts in human history, facilitated by anti-capitalism Socialists who’ll never admit in mixed company that they believe the over 250 million people killed over the last 100 or so years by ideas they hold dear is probably just a good running start.
That wouldn’t be a decline, that would be shrinkage. Yowie!!
You’d think they would have their conference in El Azizia, Libya where the temperature reached a scorching 136 degrees F oe else Daeth Valley, California, where it reached 134F just to make it look convincing.
Trouble is, these record world temperatures were in 1922 and 1913 respectively.
Even the hot drought summer of ’76 was over 30 years ago
The rest of this story is about after they get inside and begin the mental churn to individually convince themselves the experience was worth the long wait and suffering.
I can imagine most of them feeling a silent cult murmur as the cult euphoria prods them to release all resistance to full conformity and bliss.
And afterwards the feelings of chosen and inclusion spur a memory of a wonderful experience that never happened.
Everybody seems to have missed the real point of this story. In the first days of the conference a couple of guys who wanted to ask real questions managed to slip in. The screening level had to be raised substantially to ensure nothing like that happens again, thus the endless lines to gain admission.
david m brooks (19:05:49) :
Born-again colonialism indeed!
Merovign (19:48:13) :
No way he’ll figure that out, though.
Yep, it was just an oversight. They didn’t realize it was me.
How pathetic.
40,000 registered believers wait for hours outdoors in freezing temperatures to get in to a Global Warming conference. But there is room for only 15,000 spectators and the majority of them are finally shooed away by the police.
This story makes me believe that there is a God who loves us and wants us to be happy.
Steve Oregon (20:09:15) :
And afterwards the feelings of chosen and inclusion spur a memory of a wonderful experience that never happened.
Copenstock!
I’ve read some of Mr. Borenstein’s articles. He obviously fits the type of person this gathering prefers. Personally, I wish they had left Seth out in the cold.
“For most of its history it has been used as a tool of communist expansion and propaganda.”
If you do not think the UN was used by the US during the cold war to further its aims then i would like to get some of what you are smoking.
Gail Combs (18:44:59) : Where is Piers Corbyn’s blizzard when we needed it. Seven to eight hours of standing in blizzard conditions would be a real life demo of why COLD is worse than heat. Might even penetrate a journalists brains.
And you know where they are located
joshua corning (15:27:43) :
It succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.
I served a part of my time in the Dutch Army at an undisclosed location somewhere in Germany looking over some “Big Cigars”, on the other side of the iron curtain(1) where our Warsaw-pacts adversaries looking over their “Big Cigars”. The UN could have not prevented anything when the sh*t would hit the fans.
When it comes to armed conflicts the UN has a very bad track-record.
(1) And it was their curtain, they told everyone that is was to keep us out, but it was to keep their people in. communism/socialism is al about waiting in line for about almost everything.
So that brings us back at Høkenhagen(2) and their are those familiar lines again of people waiting in the cold to obtain something that is short in supply. The UN breaks the first rule of conventions, the waiting lines should not exceed a certain amount of time, people will remember that, oh yes.
(1) Høken is something from a Dutch dialect, it usually involves warmth, beer and woman, and it is much more fun than waiting a good (and bitter cold) workingday in a line for some drivel about global warming.
One can only imagine the headlines, “AGW Conference delegates freeze in Copenhagen” while awaiting entry into the Global Warming Conference. Oh no wait, the mass media hardly noticed those expiring seemingly pre-occupied with certifying Gore’s latest hypothesis that the temperature of the Earth’s interior was “millions of degrees”.
I hereby dedicate “Violet Hill” by coldplay to those stuck out in the cold in Copenhagen as well as the rest of us who don’t want any part of the sinking AGW ship.
Lyrics:
It was a long and dark December
From the rooftops I remember
There was snow, white snow
Clearly I remember
From the windows they were watching
While we froze down below
When the future’s architectured
By a carnival of idiots on show
You’d better lie low
If you love me, won’t you let me know?
Was a long and dark December
When the banks became cathedrals
And a fox became God
Priests clutched onto bibles
Hollowed out to fit their rifles
And the cross was held aloft
Bury me in armour
When I’m dead and hit the ground
My nerves are poles that unfroze
And if you love me, won’t you let me know?
I don’t want to be a soldier
Who the captain of some sinking ship
Would stow, far below.
So if you love me, why d’you let me go?
I took my love down to violet hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still
Said if you love me, won’t you let me know?
If you love me, won’t you let me know?
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Schadenfroid (n): Enjoying the vision of an AGW alarmist attempting to adjust to seasonal reality.
Denmark is not Spain.
In Spain, in a similar situation (yes, we can have cold days too), a good number of chinesse inmigrants would be moving around the queue offering thick, woolen socks to the people at the modest price of 10 euros or so. And people would buy.
Nothing against those inmigrants. They really do a good job in detecting needs and offering solutions they can benefit from. I actually like the guys.
joshua corning (21:38:08) :
If you do not think the UN was used by the US during the cold war to further its aims then i would like to get some of what you are smoking.
Name one Cold War era US aim which was successfully accomplished through the UN.
And you can get what I smoke at any tobacconist’s shop.
Let’s not pick on the UN too much. Remember, it was UN peace-keepers who stopped the genocide in Rwanda.
Oh yeah, that’s right, they didn’t.
Never mind.
Lol, couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of zombies.
A man screamed “I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Odd anatomy. No wonder he’s cold.
.
I’ve heard lots of opinions on what kept the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.
<educate>
First, overawe of nukes and under-appreciation of how big this darn planet is fostered the impression that we could destroy the world. Despite the Commodore64-level model used in the TTAPS ’83 nuke winter paper, it isn’t in the cards even for a total launch. Spanish would likely become the official language over here, though.
Second, the US wasn’t inclined to start one. The only person here who was willing to have a war was Curtis LeMay.
Third, the Soviets weren’t inclined to start one, either. Mainly because we had Curtis LeMay.
</educate>
The UN never amounted to more than a pretty face, until they started metastasizing bureaucracies into everything.
coaldust (22:48:52) :
What’s the secret to staying awake while listening to Coldplay?
I don’t think this is entirely UN fault. Before the conference there was talk about 15 000 participants altogether (and even this number seemed to me a bit too high). However, already in the first week there were more people than the capacity could accomodate so that the various NGOs had to be allowed in the conference centre in shifts.
Apparently the climate subject is much more popular than the organizers dreamed. I doubt that the 40 thousands were invited.
Maybe the eco-aware public feels that there is one last chance to get their polar bear costumes the last airing?
Ask any Bosnian male in Srebrenica over the age of fifteen what he thinks of the UN.
Oh, wait. There aren’t any…
Its snowing in copenhagen at the conference he he he he he.
people are wrapped up covered.
the pm of ethiopia, has travelled back and forth to the uk and france, to get as much money from other sources.. to get TAX. tax this, tax that.. (watching this on tv).
snow flurries, and bitterly cold.. talk of direct action by protestors.
Poor Seth, he forgot all he had to do to warm up is call the conference an Airport and set up a stevenson screen….
“Bill Tuttle (00:14:36) :
Ask any Bosnian male in Srebrenica over the age of fifteen what he thinks of the UN.
Oh, wait. There aren’t any…”
Indeed and soldiers, UN or otherwise, had to standby and do nothing but watch in many cases.
“Mercurior (00:38:38) :
the pm of ethiopia, has travelled back and forth to the uk and france, to get as much money from other sources.. to get TAX. tax this, tax that.. (watching this on tv).
snow flurries, and bitterly cold.. talk of direct action by protestors.”
In his own country, he’d be at serious risk of death, so not surprised he’s tacked a “BRB” notice on his official residence. It’s remarkable that not only do the African Union seem incapable of “doing something” about him (And other despots like Mugabe), neither does the UN. No oil (Found yet) I guess.
WHO ELSE IS IN COPENHAGEN, AND WHY
Main propaganda site?
http://en.cop15.dk/
The Tuvaluans, or is that “Tuvalooons?”, with their 2 cents worth, are there:
http://archidemo.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog
http://tv.mapping.jp/
http://10000.tv/
I guess they didn’t read this:
http://gwswindle.blogspot.com/2009/02/no-sea-level-rise.html
But I guess its more fun being the stars of the show, or at least thinking they are?
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Reminds me of Hadow’s Catlin Arctic Project last year. They went expecting to don speedos and frolic with dolphins and tropical fish at the “ice-free” Arctic, and instead nearly froze to death.
That was the scientific joke of 2008, and this is the scientific joke of 2009.
Especially for you, Seth:
In Copenhagen, snow and bitterly cold temperatures have arrived. The Dutch Meteorological Institute’s forecast for today is heavy snowfalls with high temperatures of only 2ºC (35ºF). Temperatures will continue to drop tomorrow and there will be icy winds. Friday is forecast to stay below freezing, with overnight lows of -12ºC.
Hokumhagen
As someone who spontaneously laughed for months about the global warming protest in a snowstorm in DC, this is at least a three week giggler.
With the big press lead-up to this, it might be hard to keep quiet that they had a huge cold wave just in time for the big Carbonhoaxen conference.
This time it wasn’t a bunch of dumb kids, but the major press itself. The pain is real! It might actually make the paper! Another crack appears in the dam. I miss Sam Kinneson at times like this.
As far as the oceans cooling if all of the ice melted? None, they would probably warm in the face of the 30-40F temp rise that it would take to melt all of those glaciers. Not only would the melt water warm on the way there, the oceans themselves would warm. Novel distraction tho..
“… the U.N. introduced a new quota system and ordered NGOs to cut down their numbers.”
One line, thick with so many ironies, that says it all about the WHOLE THING!
Patrick Davis (01:01:34) :
Indeed and soldiers, UN or otherwise, had to standby and do nothing but watch in many cases.
And in other instances, they were also killed. In the Rwanda “Peacekeeping” debacle, the ROE prohibited the blue helmets from even *carrying* ammunition.
I recommend anyone to read P. J. O’Rourke’s account of the Rio climate bash in – I think – his book ‘All the Troubles of the World’. Very illuminating and excruciatingly funny.
There was the same total shambles at the accreditation center. No snow, but no queuing either, it seems. Rather a seething mass of frustrated people all trying to shove their way forward. O’Rourke heard one woman call out dramatically “This is what it would be like living in an overpopulated world!”, to which his silent rejoinder was “No dear, this is what it would be like living in a world run by the U.N.”.
Establishing such a world is, of course, the whole point of Copenhagen. Think about it.
Mooloo (16:07:23) : A question for those who think the UN achieves nothing and come from a great power. Would you be willing to see your country’s veto go? If the UN achieves nothing, how come having that veto is so important? Precisely to limit what it can achieve perhaps.
The best description of why (and why there must be a House of Lords, and why the USA used to have a Senate elected by the States, but now just has a long lived assembly called a Senate and a short lived House…) was one I heard on the radio stated by a black man. It is the issue of minority rights and the fundamental instability of a direct democracy. To roughly quote him:
“Democracy? Don’t talk to me about democracy. Democracy is two wolfs and a sheep voting on what’s for lunch!”
Clearly from someone who understood the failure of democracies to guard minority rights.
This, BTW, is also why California is bankrupt.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/csd-california-socialism-disorder/
When I was a child, the individual counties elected the state Senators. The state was fiscally well run with authority largely delegated to the counties and cities as it ought to be. There was a County Hospital with free medical care for indigents, for example, but efficiently run. Then we changed the state constitution to mirror the amendment to the US constitution (so that Senators were directly elected, 17th?).
We changed from a balanced Republic, with a real “upper house”, to a representative Democracy. It has been slowly, but steadily, down hill ever since with constantly increasing spending and creation of a welfare state.
The state has raided the county funds and given them unfunded mandates to perform. Most counties are near, and some are at, bankruptcy. The state government regularly passes laws to hand out buckets of money it does not have in a ‘Bread and Circuses” way so that the wolves are happy and the sheep are fleeced.
The latest “budget compromise” (what is that, 3 this year? 4?) was for the states to shake down all the city governments for a “forced loan” that they promise to pay back “over time”… someday. Never mind that many of the cities are near bankruptcy too.
None of this would happen if the Senate were the representatives of the County.
Similarly, none of the $Trillions being blown by the present USSA Senate (That’s the United Socialist States of America ) would be happening if the US Senate were full of The States Representatives. They would not be worried about pleasing an electorate, they would be worried about what it would do to their state.
It was a mistake to amend the constitution to provide for the direct election of Senators.
It would similarly be a mistake to have “one house” in the UN. All that would happen is that the Wolves would eat all the Sheep. (Or, if you are a poor third worlder, you might prefer: the Wolves would eat all the Fat Cats.)
But the bottom line is that the failure of democracy is that lack of protection of minority rights. Sometimes the minority is the few rich folks, and sometimes it’s the poor black man, but when 51% can vote on who’s for lunch, you don’t want to be part of the 49%…
I’m sure Evan has lots of background in this. Even the Greeks and Romans knew it. The Founding Fathers knew all about it.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler
“Perhaps what he had in mind was what Prof. Alexander Frazer Tytler has written, that a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury. From that moment on the majority, he said, always vote for the candidate promising the most benefits from the treasury with the result that democracy always collpases over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship. Unfortunately, we can’t argue with the professor because when he wrote that we were still colonials of Great Britain and he was explaining what had destroyed the Athenian Republic more than 2000 years before.”
‘Seth himself stepped into the line at 7:55 a.m. and was through at 3:15 p.m., but only after another AP reporter, John Heilprin, “saved my bacon” by persuading a U.N. security guard to go out and fetch him.’
Sort of reminds one of the “bread lines” in Moscow. Except in Mosow, Seth would not have been saved by John.
Socialism at work. Isn’t it just wonderful?
Welcome to Scandinavia!
Here’s a direct live link to todays demonstrations!
http://ekstrabladet.tv/live/
The President of the Climate Conference has resigned (Fox News.com)
The wheels on the bus go thump, thump, thump
Jon Jewett (17:21:12) :
Ray (15:10:11) :
A note: Since WUWT has an International Status now, it would be great to also use International Units…
**********************
[…] Just ask the Britons that wanted to use the traditional system of measurement. Off with their heads!
Just between you and me, I’d rather stick to our English system as an act of defiance. […] Steamboat Jack
Ok, the “every so often” nag to “one size fits all mandated conformity” comes around again. Strange how the virtue of “diversity” is so selective…
So, for you Steamboat Jack, my defense of the English Foot, and why I will be using it for the rest of my life:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/making-an-english-foot/
And the companion piece showing the Greek foot is almost exactly the same and the older Minoan foot too:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/chasing-the-greek-foot/
The foot, rod, acre, and all the units derived from them are much more rational and reasonable than is reputed. I can create an accurate rod from anywhere on the planet with 2 sticks, some string, a stone, and the night sky. Also, while decimals are OK for a calculator machine, fractions are better if you are ‘doing it in your head’ and even have advantages on paper.
For example. 1/3 is an exact quantity. 0.33333 is not an accurate third. If you hold your calculations as fractions, you get an exact result, only losing precision at the final “reduction of the fraction” to a decimal. And base 12 is far more rich in usable fractions than base 10. Base 60 even more so (which is why it is used for time and navigation).
So if you would like to be able to accurately and with minimal tools: Navigate, tell time, have a precise reproducible time standard, have a precise and reproducible length standard, and measure and build things without benefit of calculating machines: The traditional units of measure are superior.
Oh, and the absolute sizes of the units tend to be closer to what folks want so you often get to use single digits to specify sizes: 1 cup of coffee (who wants 250 ml ?), 1 pound of butter or steak ( 500 gm steak?…), 1 ounce of Tequila (well, some folks might want a bigger unit 😉 etc.
And whatever you do, don’t try to split something 3 ways with the metric system…
My apologies if it’s already been pointed out, but…
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
How do socks keep your a$$ warm?
E.M.Smith (04:29:37),
Make mine a gill of tequila.
@Deadman (18:15:38) :
“I advocate 1 UNIQ where, say, 1 mUNIQ = an incompetently arranged accreditation process…”
Would that pronunciation be “eunuch”?
I see ‘Friends of the Earth’ cannot now get into the Copenhagen summit….
It emerged later that no one from Friends of the Earth was allowed in. Executive Director Andy Atkins claimed it was an affront to democracy.
“It is a crisis of democracy when campaigning charities like Friends of the Earth are prevented from speaking up on behalf of communities around the globewithin the talks themselves,” he said.”We were stunned to discover that every Friends of the Earth delegate has been banned from attending these crucial talks – if this is a consequence of our role as one of the most prominent groups calling for a strong and fair agreement, this is even more disturbing
“This draconian measure is completely unjustified – the Copenhagen conference is fast becoming an international shambles.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6824890/Copenhagen-climate-summit-protests-threaten-to-shut-down-talks.html
It is instructive, I think, to compare & contrast these two video links (already posted by several others above).
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/12/15/2772906.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pft7c/The_Environment_Debate/
The ‘debate’ between Plimer & the Great Moonbat shows the dangers for a competent scientist (I have no doubt that Plimer IS competent) when he tangles with media savvy journalists. The thrust of the debate (including consideration of the actual Geological / climate record and the implications of Climategate) became completely submerged in Monbiot’s accusations that Plimer had committed a deliberate “scientific fraud” in suggesting that (a) global temperatures had cooled since 1998 and (b) volcano CO2 emissions could exceed human CO2 emissions, when the huge number of undersea volcanoes are included.
It must be said that, having changed the whole debate to challenging Plimer’s book (albeit on these two specific issues), Monbiot went into attack dog mode, with the complicity of the ABC anchorman, and Plimer’s refusal to deal properly with these challenges made a poor impression.
I don’t know enough to say whether the point about CO2 emissions from volcanoes is right, wrong or indifferent. (This point is, in any case, hardly central to the thrust of Plimer’s book). But I’ve seen plently of ‘evidence’ on WUWT, CA and a host of other sites that global temperatures have in fact levelled off or declined since 1998 (depending on whatever corrupted and unreliable data is fed into which dodgy computer).
I do know it is easier to think straight AFTER you’ve been attacked whilst in the spotlight. But it is a great pity that Plimer didn’t think to turn it round again and say something along the lines of “OK, just for the debate, let’s pretend as you suggest that it hasn’t cooled in the last decade. Now you tell me, Mr. Monbiot, why there is absolutely NO evidence whatever that it has warmed during that period, anything even approaching the results of all those discredited computer models so dear to your heart?”
So I think, unfortunately, that no-one really emerged with a lot of credit from the ABC encounter.
The BBC4 debate was quite different. It was spiced up with clips from “The Age of Stupid” – which clearly represents the apotheosis of stupidity – but I think both Dick Lindzen & Bjorn Lomborg aquitted themselves well (and, for once, were allowed to do so) and even the egregious Bob Watson made some half way sensible points in between mouthing the AGW credo.
Dick Lindzen is, of course, a National – nay an International Treasure. I hope he won’t be offended if I say that, to me he looks just like a science professor should look! But he is (rightly) extremely careful in the points he makes (I can’t see him ever falling into the trap that Plimer seems to have done, in making statements about volcanoes – or whatever – that can’t be substantiated in great detail). And the thrust of his message could perhaps be summarised that, whilst the conventional AGW scare is almost definitely wrong, the science is not yet sufficiently developed to be absolutely categoric about what has driven such warming as has occurred. Which is, of course, an uncertain message that the media have great difficulty with. “We don’t really know? What kind of a sound byte is that?”)
In this, he reminds me of Steve McIntyre who is similarly cautious and methodical in his approach. Neither McIntyre nor Lindzen are ever going to make a career as TV anchormen and I’m sure that’s entirely OK with them!
Lomborg was allowed to make a number of very sensible and valuable policy points and even Watson had to admit that saving hypothetical people as yet unborn from equally hypothetical problems, in 90 years time, was unjustifiable when real people in 2009 were hungry, had no clean water and no reliable and affordable energy.
On balance, if no-one came out of the ABC debate looking good, no-one came out of the BBC4 debate looking bad. Personally, I think it can only be helpful, although I doubt very much that any of the Copenhagen Clowns will ever watch it.
But we shouldn’t forget the most amazing feature of both these TV debates is that they were held at all. The thought that there was even a debate to be held would have been absolute anathema to the BBC even last month. Now it is out, they won’t easily get that genie back in the bottle. (Although I still say that Copenhagen is not about science anyway and AGW is absolutely too big to fail!)
To this we owe a huge vote of thanks to the hero of the UEA leaks!
Do 45,000 delegates need to attend climate conference?
Quote:
Chief organiser, Yvo de Boer, admitted he was to blame and said: “You can’t fit size 12 feet into size six shoes.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8415358.stm
This from the BBC?
Great!
“You are so important they wont let you in”
The BBC having a go at Friend of the Earth.
Enjoy.
From an Indian attendee out in the cold:
http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/bahardutt/258/54004/from-copenhagen-chaos-and-cold-cloud-over-climate-talks.html
Tuesday morning as I write this there are again thousands standing in the cold outside, with no signs of anyone being let in today as well. To make matters worse the train station at Bella Centre has been shut down as they can’t deal with the swelling crowd. I can’t but help wonder – if this was India, by now some chaiwallah would have emerged, some food stalls would have instantly cropped up, but here in Denmark, people stood quiet, tired and hungry for hours. Surely the UNFCCC could have done a better job!
Martin – I watched the BBC4 programme and agree with you almost entirely (I thought Bob Watson generated more heat than light, but that’s normal enough, and at least he didn’t swear on camera like he did on Newsnight).
I also agree that Lindzen looks just like a science professor should, and although he gets accused of not being telegenic, I don’t think that counts against. He’s measured, polite and reasonable, which has the effect of making noisy AGW supporters appear the opposite.
Zenaib Badawi made a good host, I thought – interesting to speculate what was being shouted in her earpiece! Perhaps the BBC is coming round, albeit slowly, like a supertanker.
Leaving journalists out in the cold at Copenhagen has probably done more for scepticism in the MSM than anything else could have, bar perhaps turning the heating off.. 🙂
yonason (01:30:13) :
WHO ELSE IS IN COPENHAGEN, AND WHY
The Tuvaluans, or is that “Tuvalooons?”, with their 2 cents worth, are there:
Drumming up business for their beachfront hotel? I imagine the Friends of Earth need to thaw out by now…
photon without a Higgs (23:57:03) :
coaldust (22:48:52) :
What’s the secret to staying awake while listening to Coldplay?
Apply all lyrics to AGW and laugh.
A sock, a sock! My kingdom for a sock!
I understood that the reason the USSR turned the nuclear arms carrying ships back from Cuba was that Kennedy agreed to dismantle the Thor missiles on the Turkish border that were threatening the USSR, nothing to do with the UN.
Should I feel sorry for Seth?
The truck said it was -24 C or about -11F on the way to work this morning. The radio said something similar. (See, we work ok in both units here in Canada. A certain foreign influence I assume). I expect -17 C or about 1 F for noon, with a wind chill of -24 C or about -11 F. I’ll still go for my 3 mile or about 4.8 km walk in bright but chilling sunshine during which I’ll ponder the prospects of global warming.
@Robert Ray
I think what you will notice is that a lower danish cabinet member resigned so that the Prime Minister of Denmark could take over her position. So yes the Danish president of the U.N. climate conference resigned but that was only to be replaced buy someone higher in stature to be the new Danish president of the U.N. climate conference.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580348,00.html
At least the Danish police has demonstrated how a nice wellorganized queue should be!
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/12/copenhagen-choo-choo.html
“I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Who could have imagined you’d ever need them there?
[I quote:]
“In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks…”
Today’s Wall Street Journal Op Ed explains what every person in Copenhagen already knows:
So the real question is how many trillions of dollars can be printed before the President of the United States arrives in Copenhagen Friday to pull off a deal or two.
I humbly suggest that there is no reason why the domestic home-printing-press program employed so effectively in the U.S.
http://theskunk.org/2009/02/obama-wants-citizens-to-print-their-own-money/
…should not now be expanded for the benefit of the world at large.
Sing It!
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there’s a land that’s fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
http://www.bluegrasslyrics.com/all_song.cfm-recordID=s29253.htm
One could be lead to think that a warming conference sited North of Stalingrad in December would be to encourage warming.
The danish governement is responsible for the logistic of the summit (The danish governement paid for it, even if UNFCCC participated to the cost …).
Confusion between an intergovernemental conference and a fun fair or a market !
They should outsource their next conference’s logistics to the Heartland Institute 🙂
“I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/5133018/251655-main_Full.jpg
“Bill Tuttle (02:51:53) :
And in other instances, they were also killed. In the Rwanda “Peacekeeping” debacle, the ROE prohibited the blue helmets from even *carrying* ammunition.”
Exactly. Another reason why I got out of the forces.
Another “science journalist” commenting on the tough conditions in Copenhagen, this time from our friends at the ACS.
http://cenblog.org/2009/12/15/crowded-midway-or-why-its-a-zoo/
Interesting juxtaposition in this quote (or is it just me?):
Dear Santa,
If it’s not too much trouble, could you please dump about 2 metres of snow on the Bella Center outside of Copenhagen for Friday the 18th? I gladly share that same gift with others.
I ask for no more this Christmas.
Maybe Seth can write a piece on the weather conditions that allowed Sweden to invade Denmark in February 1658, by marching across the frozen Baltic.
Tough to know who to root for in a case like this. Let’s pray for a few feet of snow just to put a nice, Christmas-y look to the whole thing!
Seth, you are a bum and a sham. Calling you a journalist is an insult to journalists around the world (the few that are left, anyway). Go read the scientific data about supposed global warming and educate yourself.